4.8 • 186 Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
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We've curated a special 10-minute version of the podcast for those in a hurry.
Here you can listen to the full episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/sap-ceo-european-tech-leadership-cloud-innovation-and/id1614211565?i=1000705496188&l=nb
How does SAP build and scale the systems that global companies rely on every day? In this episode, Nicolai Tangen speaks with Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, Europe’s largest technology company and one of the world’s leading software providers. They explore SAP's cloud transformation journey, how AI is revolutionizing business productivity, and the challenges of technological nationalism in a fragmented global landscape. Christian shares his leadership philosophy on risk-taking and performance culture, along with insights from his remarkable journey from student intern to CEO before age 40. Tune in for an insightful discussion on the future of enterprise technology!
In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.
The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Kristian Haga.
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0:00.0 | Hi everybody, tune in to this short version of the podcast, which we do every Friday for the long version. |
0:06.4 | Tune in on Wednesdays. |
0:09.0 | Hi everybody, I'm Nicola Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, and today I'm in really good company with Christian Klein, the CEO of the software giant SAP. |
0:18.3 | Now, SAP is now the largest company in Europe, third largest software company in the |
0:23.0 | world. And we own just under 3% of the company, $9 billion, equivalent to 100 billion Norwegian |
0:29.9 | crowner or 20,000 kroner per Norwegian. So it's a very big and important position for us. |
0:36.5 | Christian started as a student intern in SAP. |
0:39.6 | Like 20 years ago, he became the CEO. Wow. What a journey, Christian. Yeah, but you see my quay has. |
0:47.5 | First of all, now, just to get a feel for the importance of SAP, how much of the world's |
0:52.6 | business touches an SAP system? Yeah, Nicola, first of all, how much of the world's business touches an SAP system? |
0:55.4 | Yeah, Nicola, first of all, thanks for the trust into SAP. |
0:59.8 | And indeed, it was a remarkable journey the last four years. |
1:03.4 | But of course, you feel that a lot of the world's transactions are relying on SAP systems. |
1:09.7 | Now, especially with the cloud, I mean, |
1:11.4 | clients are very serious about, you know, how do we want their most mission critical systems? |
1:16.0 | And to your question, 80% of the world's, you know, B2B transactions won and touching an SAP system. |
1:22.9 | Wow. How many of the largest companies in the world? |
1:26.4 | Actually, 95% use one or the other SAP system. |
1:30.3 | Many of them finance, supply chain, obviously, but we have HR. |
1:34.3 | I mean, we have probably in the SaaS space the broadest portfolio in our industry. |
1:38.3 | So, unbelievable. |
1:40.3 | Now, for the people who don't know what ERP is, |
... |
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